[Sandy Hancock]

I use a standard collapsible 58mm rubber hood on stacked stepping rings. It works great on my A50/1.2

[THoog]

now i am very confused!

ramseybuckeye said the PH-RBC is the correct hood according to the ricoh website but stevebrot is saying it won't fit now.

SteveBrot is correct. The PH-RBC is for lenses with matching bayonet lugs, and the FA 50/1.4 does not have those lugs. The FA 50/1.4 was first issued in 1991. That was another era, when lenses usually were not sold with dedicated hoods. The three hoods used with the FA 50/1.4 were the RH-RC49 (basically a 49mm collapsible rubber hood), the PH-SA49 clip-on "box"-shaped hood, and the PH-RA49 "tube"-type. All of these were designed for full-frame use.

With hoods, you generally want the deepest, narrowest hood that doesn't cause vignetting. Because APS-C has a narrower field of view, hoods designed for FF may not give the best results. For the metal "tube"-type hoods, on APS-C you can usually use a "standard" hood instead of wide, and a "tele" hood instead of standard. I find the rubber three-way hoods to be a little wide for 50mm - I use a 49mm "tele" metal hood with mine.

Plastic 'petal' type hoods have cut-back corners to avoid vignetting on wide-angle lenses. For a 50mm lens on APS-C, they don't provide any benefit, apart from looking "modern". On lenses with rotating front elements, the 3rd-party 'petal' hoods that clip on or screw into filter threads are a pain, because you have to keep adjusting the hood. (The FA 50/1.4 doesn't rotate.)

There are a few other types of hoods out there, but unless you want to experiment, I'd recommend sticking to either the 49mm rubber or metal type for the FA 50/1.4.

[seventysixersfan]

With APS-C you can get away with a bit deeper hood. I used a circular screw in model with my Pentax 50mm lenses. It was originally intended for short tele and works great on the smaller format. I got it on eBay:New Metal Tele 49mm Screw in Lens Hood | eBay

This is one I use with my FA 50 f/1.4 and it's great. The FA 50 works best with a lens hood-- provides better contrast, in my experience.

[Na Horuk]

You can buy a filter that has bayonet lugs so that you can add a bayonet hood lol
You can get an original pricey one, but I wouldn't pay that much for it.
Another thing to keep in mind is where the lens will be used. On an APSC camera, you can add a much tighter lens hood, get more protection, and have no issues.
What I would suggest is you get a JJC or Mennon or whatever brandless lens hood that fits the filter threads on that lens. You can get a nice round one for a low price. Rubber ones can be good, too, because you can set them to different lengths and some have filter threads on the end as well. You can get a telephoto petal hood, it looks cool, but its not as optimal. Personally, I got a JJC PH-SA49 replacement, even though its a bit "wide". The square fits with the Pentax theme. But its a clip on hood, which has some downsides, but its faster to mount than some screw-on hoods. Take a look at Mennon A-S 49 and Mennon DC-s 49. Regarding material, I would choose plastic over metal. Metal can be shiny and if you bump it, it can transfer stress to the lens. I prefer the hood snaps and breaks than the lens!
Choose based on your needs.

Btw, some people even use a step down ring or two as a lens hood, similar to how some DA Limited lenses have those pancake hoods. Just make sure the opening isn't too small.

Edit: Thing is, a native square hood will be the most optimized and best. Native petal/tulip/crown hoods are good as well. But if it doesn't fit the specific camera, focal length and aperture, then its not optimal, might even have weaknesses, and its not super cheap. This is why circle hoods are fairly good, because even though they are not optimal, they fit pretty well on almost anything, have few weaknesses, and are generally pretty cheap. Vented hoods are for rangefinders. I wouldn't pay over $20 for a hood, unless it was for a very unique lens

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Last edited by Na Horuk; 07-01-2015 at 08:21 AM.

[lgbalfa]

thank you everyone for the feedback.

i decided on the rubber hood from BH:

Pentax 49mm Round Rubber Lens Hood 34260 B&H Photo Video

[lgbalfa]

received the pentax rubber hood today.

looks and fits good,

in hindsight, i probably should have just gotten a cheap one from china on ebay instead of the original pentax one but it's fine.

[Sandy Hancock]

I would say that is too wide and shallow to work optimally on an APS-C body. It also collapses too far to offer any protection to the front element, so your UV filter is probably worthwhile.

[Transit]

...
With APS-C you can get away with a bit deeper hood. I used a circular screw in model with my Pentax 50mm lenses. ...

yep, the Takumar 135 hood is great with no vignetting. Otherwise go rubber

[magkelly]

I don't like rubber hoods much because while they are convenient in terms of space if you're at all clumsy you can tear them. I've done it, sigh. Plastic ones are okay. They get the job done but in the end I prefer metal ones that screw on. Most of the clip on hoods I end up dropping them half the time because they seem to come off a camera just when I don't need them to and I find putting them on can be fiddly, and as I said above, I'm clumsy. My hands are arthritic and for some reason I just find the screw in metal hoods easier to use. Then again I'm one of those people who actually likes M42 lenses and thinks they're easier to use than the K mount lenses. I can use the bayonet system but I'm happiest when I am using the M42 lenses and screw on metal hoods.